Prolific composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton performs with his Falling River Music quartet, at a 400-year-old former pig barn in Austria! Braxton – a pioneer of avant-garde and improvised music – is well known for challenging traditional compositional methods with approaches such as graphic scores and instructions left open to the performers’ interpretation. Falling River Music is the composer’s latest system, and Braxton – performing on alto and soprano saxophones – is joined by three stars from the younger generation of New York’s experimental scene: cornettist Taylor Ho Bynum, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and guitarist Mary Halvorson. Jazz on 3 trekked all the way to the tiny Austrian town of Ulrichsberg to record a stunning gig, in addition to which Braxton and his group explain the visual references and directions they use to create the music.

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One of the fastest-rising stars of the UK jazz scene, pianist Alexander Hawkins is remarkable in that he shines equally in both the further reaches of free improvisation and the creation of ingeniously crafted charts. Indeed, Hawkins’ particular talent might be in bringing the two so close that it’s hard to distinguish between them. At times on his two acclaimed Ensemble releases, No Now is So (FMR, 2009) and All There, Ever Out (Babel Label, 2012), there seems to be simultaneous expression of both the written and the unfettered. While uncompromisingly modern, he has a deep appreciation of the jazz tradition, a trait apparent in compositions such as “Tatum Totem,” which references the likes pianist Art Tatum while invoking reed multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton. In concert, a single solo might move from stride piano to all-out Cecil Taylor-inspired mayhem.

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On this release double bassist/sound artist Bruno Duplant performs three verbal scores by composer Manfred Werder. Each score consists of a brief text taken from the French poet Francis Ponge; Duplant’s realizations, recorded in 2011 in Waziers and Douai in France, involve performances in settings in which ambient sounds played as significant a role as Duplant’s use of sine tones, double bass and horn.

The first piece, a realization of Werder’s 2009-4, sounds like it was recorded outdoors in a wooded setting. Sine tones gently rise and fall within the larger sonic space of birdsong, insect sounds and what could be wind and/or distant traffic. By contrast, the second piece, 2009-5, is played out against a background of artificial sounds. The track opens with the Doppler-effected sounds of passing traffic; one gradually becomes aware of the quiet encroachment of Duplant’s bowed bass. Changes of bow pressure and placement relative to the bridge produce subtle shifts of timbre and volume; the long, deep tones, separated by substantial rests, overlap with and complement the surrounding drone of automobile engines. The third track, a realization of 2010-2, seems to have been recorded indoors and opens with what sounds like footsteps on a wood floor. The relative quiet of the recording ambience is broken by the intrusion of sirens, a reminder of the human activity outside. Once again Duplant brings in long bowed tones separated by lengthy pauses; the time between tones becomes more compressed as the piece approaches its conclusion.

The scores have some constraining effect on the performance, though what that precise effect is does not make itself transparently obvious to the listener. The third score, for example, consists of two lines asserting a correspondence between the French phrase for “glass of water” (“verre d’eau”) and the object it describes, based on Ponge’s observation that the opening and closing letters of the phrase have the same vase-like shape as a drinking glass. The connection of Ponge’s observation to Duplant’s realization is something not immediately apparent; it takes place somewhere out of earshot, as it were, but the process of drawing the association would seem to be fundamental to the concept underlying the score. The performance lies as much in the performer’s (internal) act of interpretation as it does in the external execution or in the overt instruction of the score itself—the essence of the performance in this regard is something made invisible and, not incidentally, something beyond the control of the composer. This for Werder represents a deliberate pursuit of indeterminacy by way of a reduction of the role of the composer as well as the composition, which here functions more as an associative stimulant than as an unambiguous set of directions. As the performances on this recording demonstrate, any realization of these scores is a collective effort in which the performer plays a role equal to that of the composer. That Duplant’s choices in responding to Werder’s promptings are apt ones makes this a recording that succeeds at both the conceptual and practical levels.

Ben Frost’s music is not just heard; it’s felt. Influenced by classical minimalism as well as punk rock and metal, he creates monolithic sounds that command attention through their visceral intensity. Frost exploits every extreme of pitch and volume as he pushes the sound of electric guitars, drums, and laptops out from a wall of speakers and amps. As the music unfolds, overlapping layers and elongated structural forms emerge from within the encompassing sonic space.

For this performance, Frost will perform recent material never before heard in the US.

On albums like Steel Wound, released on the Room40 label in 2003 (Pitchfork: “An exemplary ambient experience”), Theory of Machines on Bedroom Community in 2007 (Boomkat: “The Future of electronic music…”) and 2009’s BY THE THROAT (NME: “a hollow, unforgiving, brutal yet utterly beautiful record, full of deep intricacies that won’t let you go.”), Frost’s music is more than a cerebral exercise and has an undeniable visceral presence, felt as much as heard. His compositions are created with an acute awareness of the listener and their comfort thresholds, exploiting every extreme of pitch and volume. His notorious, building-shaking performances at international festivals including Montreal’s famed MUTEK combine amplified electronics with the furious thrashing of live guitars. Frost himself has been described as “one of the most interesting and groundbreaking producers in the world today” (Boomkat). His music’s intense physicality has filled gallery spaces and driven contemporary dance productions by Chunky Move, the Icelandic Dance Company, and the acclaimed choreographers Erna Ómarsdottír and Wayne McGregor.